


Meetings

by FelicityGS



Series: A Thing With No Name [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, M/M, Soft Kylux, tw: gay slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:19:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8736364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelicityGS/pseuds/FelicityGS
Summary: Hux taps a finger on his knee, legs crossed; his mouth is still too tight, and there’s a promise of (verbal) violence beneath the surface--Hux hates the past, everything before they (he) got out, and he hates those who remind him of it more. There’s a reason Kylo usually does interviews, while Hux does not. “How did we meet, Kylo?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> A very quick soft thing. There's a wider story here I want to tell and perhaps I will one day, but this is what I've got for now. 
> 
> Modern AU, but they met in high school.

“How did you meet?” Rey leans forward, eyes sharp and focused on Hux. Kylo shifts; there’s the tiniest of twitches at the corner of Hux’s mouth, something he knows Rey will miss but Kylo can’t. 

“It was years ago,” Kylo says to draw Rey’s focus. He’d promised his cousin this interview, even knowing it was a mistake at the time. The least he can do is try to run damage control and keep Hux from eviscerating her. 

“Yes.” Hux taps a finger on his knee, legs crossed; his mouth is still too tight, and there’s a promise of (verbal) violence beneath the surface--Hux hates the past, everything before they ( _ he _ ) got out, and he hates those who remind him of it more. There’s a reason Kylo usually does interviews, while Hux does not. “How  _ did _ we meet, Kylo?”

Hux’s voice is all acid and desert winds; Rey glances to him again, then to Kylo, eyes focused. She, Kylo knows, has spent years reporting from deserts. Hux’s metaphorical ones won’t scare her. 

“We met in highschool,” Kylo says. “We were chemistry partners.”

“Yes,” Hux says. “There, something romantic you can make a horrifying pun of. Now, if you would, I was informed this was an interview far more interested in my  _ current _ work.”

Rey’s eyes flick to Kylo as Kylo tries, and fails, to discreetly rest his hand on Hux’s thigh. Kylo looks back and rubs slow circles against the tense muscle beneath his fingers. 

“Alright,” Rey says, but Kylo knows she’s curious. They all are--and it would be a better scoop for an up-and-coming reporter than the one she’s getting. Plenty of people know about Hux’s work, his company, his explosive rise to fame, the way he’s written the rules on how technology works these days, but Hux himself? The person behind it all?

Kylo is the closest they manage. 

***

“He’s… colder, you know, than you let me think.” 

Rey keeps her voice neutral, but Kylo hears the accusation; he’s heard it often enough after interviews. Rey, at least, means that Hux is colder than Kylo lets the public think, but then Rey is all heat and passion and believes that people should be honest.

She doesn’t understand that Hux, cold and brittle and moments from anger,  _ is _ honest. It’s the most honest version of Hux, or at least when Hux has to deal with people that aren’t Kylo. 

(Even Kylo, sometimes.)

“He’s been through a lot,” is what Kylo says. He pulls his coat on, then his gloves. “But he’s smart.” He looks up at Rey, though he makes sure some of his hair falls in front of his eyes so it’s more through his fringe than directly at her.

Rey looks back, even and considering. 

“Be kind,” Kylo asks. “Please.” 

“I won’t lie,” Rey says.

“Kylo,” Hux calls. He’s at the door, slipping his phone back into the inner breast pocket of his black wool coat, eyes blending green and blue in the winter light. From here, it almost looks like there’s snow threading his red hair, not age. Free of the conference room, half-outside, Hux’s shoulders have eased fractionally and his poise is returned. His jaw isn’t clenched and he isn’t waiting for Rey to ask a question that is a weapon in disguise. 

Kylo waits, looking back at Rey.

“Please,” he says again. And, “I trust you.”   
  
“I won’t lie,” Rey repeats. “But I’ll do what I can.” 

It’s enough--it has to be, Kylo can’t stay longer, not with Hux waiting. He hurries to where Hux stands, the chill wind hitting him in the face before he wraps his scarf properly. Hux falls in step with him; not in sync, his stride is short and sharp and staccato, but their pace is the same. Hux’s hand slides across his waist, rests at the small of his back, and Kylo wraps an arm around Hux’s shoulders on instinct. 

“There is time for lunch,” Hux says.

“Okay,” Kylo says. “If I cook? Or?”   
  
“Out.” Hux relaxes marginally into Kylo’s side as they stop at the corner to wait for the light. “Out.” Then, “I’m so tired.”

Kylo presses his face to Hux’s graying hair just enough for Hux to feel the pressure, but not to mess it up. “Leave at six,” he says.

“Absolutely not.” 

“You haven’t been sleeping more than a few hours for weeks now. You’re crashing. Stay, I can babysit your email.”   
  
Hux huffs and promises nothing. They share lunch--sandwiches and chips at some upscale cafe that’s on the first floor of Hux’s building--and then Hux leaves to go back to work and Kylo leaves to go home. 

At six, Hux comes into the garage where Kylo has music turned up so loud that it feels like it overwrites his own heartbeat. Hux sits next to Kylo; he says nothing, but he leans into Kylo and does not flinch away when Kylo reaches a plaster coated hand over to rub his knee. He sighs--Kylo feels the breath ghost across his arm. 

Hux falls asleep leaned against him, and does not wake when an hour later Kylo finally wraps up and kills the music. Kylo carries him to bed, then lays down next to him, draping himself around Hux the way he did decades ago after fights, when Hux was all blood and bruises and trembling fury.

***

Breakfast, the next morning; sunlight struggling to filter in through the window, their coffees steaming on the table. Hux’s face is still creased from the sheets, mouth still soft because he has not stepped outside their home yet. He pokes and prods at the display of his tablet while Kylo cooks breakfast. Kylo doesn’t want him to go, but he knows there’s a chance that if he says as much, it will lead to a fight. He’s not sure if he wants a fight.

He looks down, lets his hair fall between them so he won’t have to see Hux’s reaction.

“You should stay home,” Kylo says. 

“How  _ did _ we meet?” Hux asks at almost the same time. He pauses, but Kylo does not look up. He prods at the bacon, flips over a few pieces--Hux likes his barely cooked. The silence stretches, almost heavy; Hux does not want to say no, and he does not want to stay. 

But he does not want to fight; if he did, he would have responded incisively, immediately, and for that Kylo is thankful.

(He can fight with Hux, Hux has always made sure of that, but Hux is tired and beginning to crash and a fight will only speed it along; Kylo wants to cushion the blow, not engender it.)

“I’ll tell you, if you stay.” Kylo pushes his hair out of his face, looks up at Hux bold as he can. Boldness, he knows, sometimes makes Hux crumple, when he’s like this.

Hux rubs at the stubble he has not yet shaved, eyebrows dipping as he meets Kylo’s gaze. He looks away first, takes a sip of his coffee. He might say no; Kylo hopes he doesn’t, because he’s invested and knows he won’t be able to let this go, now that there’s the  _ possibility _ that Hux will stay.

“You can work as easily from here as the office,” Kylo says. He plates Hux’s bacon, but leaves his to burn. Makes toast, gets the yogurt from the fridge, then fruit, and then plates all of those as well.

“Perhaps,” Hux says. 

Kylo finishes preparing breakfast and brings it all over. He pours Hux another cup of coffee and they eat quietly; Kylo keeps bracing for a fight whenever Hux sighs or micro-stretches, but then Hux rubs his foot against Kylo’s shin under the table and he knows they won’t fight, not this morning. 

“Was it really highschool?” Hux asks.

“Do you really not remember?”

“No. Why should I? That was nearly two decades ago. When have you not been here?”

“Will you stay?”

“Yes,” Hux says. 

“Okay,” Kylo says, then—

***

_ It was senior year, and you were the angriest person I’d ever seen outside a mirror _ .  _ I hated you, on sight, with your fancy clothes and weird accent and the way you managed to look down at me even though you were shorter than me--you looked just like every douche who’d ever mocked me in elementary. I guess I didn’t realize you were angry, then, when we were paired for chem, but it was a week later, and some kid called you a fag and you beat his face bloody in the hallway, cut your knuckles on his teeth. They had to pry you off him and you were--beautiful, really, and terrifying and I never knew anyone could ever, ever, be half as angry as me and yet there you were.  _

_ You made me bring your classwork from school the week you were suspended because I was the only person you knew, and when you came back his friends tried to jump you behind the bleachers at the football field. We were--I don’t remember what we were doing, but we weren’t in chem and we got the shit kicked out of us because it’s not like I could just watch, but you just laughed and that’s when I knew I loved you--I told you so, and you kissed me, not my first but the one that mattered, it was all blood and heat, and I knew I’d follow you anywhere, if you asked, and I wondered if this is what people meant when they said I needed to stop always thinking about myself because I was terrified you’d kill yourself. Because you were killing yourself, bit by bit, in fights with everyone for any reason you could think up. _

***

—and lets the words trail off in the air. Hux watches him, mouth a soft bow, top teeth just barely digging into the skin of his bottom lip. His fingers run around and around and around the rim of his coffee mug, and Kylo follows the calloused tips with his eyes because there is a look in Hux’s that runs deep and dark and Kylo doesn’t have a name for it and never has. 

“Oh,” Hux says, so soft it could be an exhale of the old heating in their home. 

“Oh,” Kylo echoes. Hux’s fingers stop running around the edge of his mug.

“Kylo.” 

Kylo looks up, meets Hux’s eyes again. 

“Thank you,” Hux says, then he reaches out, hand sliding easy around the back of Kylo’s neck and pulling him forward; Kylo goes, leans into the kiss--it’s so slow, so simple, and the table is digging into his stomach with the weird position, but he doesn’t care. He brings a hand up to rest loose on Hux’s wrist and maps out Hux’s mouth; if he closes his eyes, he can almost remember the taste of blood.


End file.
